Mary Gray | Page 5

and retire into a dingier part of the town. Once it is known that I am Lady Anne Hamilton's medical man the snobs of the neighbourhood will all be sending for me."
"Poor Dr. Pownall!" said Mrs. Carruthers, laughing softly.
"Oh, Pownall is all right. They say he's immensely wealthy. He can retire now and enjoy his money. If the public did not go back on him he'd be a dead man in five or six years. He does the work of twenty men. I pity the others, the poor devils who are waiting on fortune as I have waited."
"There is no fear of Lady Anne disappointing you?" she asked, in a hesitating voice. She did not like to seem to throw cold water on his joyful mood.
"There is no fear," he answered, standing midway of the room with its three large windows. "She is coming to see you, Milly. If I have failed in anything you will succeed. You will see me at the top of the tree yet. You will have cause to be proud of me."
"I am always proud of you. Kit," she said, in a low, impassioned voice.
Meanwhile, Lady Anne herself had made a pilgrimage to Wistaria Terrace in the hour preceding the luncheon hour. She had left Mary in a deep chair in the big drawing-room. Outside were the boughs of trees. From the windows you could surprise the secrets of the birds if you would. The room was very spacious, with chairs and sofas round the walls, a great mirror at either end, a paper on its walls which pretended to be panels wreathed in roses. The ceiling had a gay picture of gods and goddesses reclining in a flowery mead. The mantelpiece was Carrara marble, curiously inlaid with coloured wreaths. There was a fire in the brass grate, although it was summer weather. The proximity of the trees and the natural climate of the place meant damp. The fire sparkled in the brass dogs and the brass jambs of the fireplace. The skin of a tiger stretched itself along the floor. The terrible teeth grinned almost at Mary's feet.
The child was sick and faint from the pain of having her arm set. She lay in the deep sofa, covered with red damask, amid a bewildering softness of cushions and rugs, and wondered what Lady Anne was saying to Mamie. Mamie was Mrs. Gray. From the first Mary had not called her Mother. Her name was Matilda, and Mamie was a sort of compromise.
Meanwhile, Lady Anne had gone out by her garden, through the stable, and into the lane at the back. There was a little door open in the opposite wall; beyond it was a shabby trellis with scarlet-runners clambering upon it.
Lady Anne peeped within. A disheartened-looking woman was hanging a child's frock on the line which was stretched from wall to wall. Three children, ranging in age from two to five, were sitting on the grass plot. Two were playing with white stones. The third was surveying its own small feet with great interest, sucking at a fat thumb as though it conveyed some delicious nourishment.
"Do I speak to Mrs. Gray?" asked Lady Anne, advancing. She had a sunshade over her head, a deep-fringed thing with a folding handle. She had bought it in Paris in the days of the Second Empire.
Mrs. Gray stared at the stranger within her gates, whom she knew by sight. There was some perturbation in her face. She had been worried about the unusual duration of Mary's absence. Mary had not come back with the market basket which contained the children's dinner. At one o'clock the four elder ones would be upon her, ravening. What on earth had become of Mary? The poor woman had not realised how much she depended on Mary, since Mary was always present and always willing to take the burdens off her stepmother's thin, stooped shoulders on to her own.
Now she caught sight of the market-basket. One of Lady Anne's white-capped maids had come in and deposited it quietly.
"Mary?" she gasped. "What has become of Mary?"
"Pray don't frighten yourself," said Lady Anne. "I have a message from Mary. She is at my house. As a matter of fact, she met with an accident. There--don't go so pale. It is only a matter of time. Her arm is broken. She got it broken in saving the life of my little Maltese, who had strayed out and had got in the way of the tram. I always said that those trams should not be allowed. The tracks are so very unpleasant--dangerous even, for the carriages of gentlefolk. There is far too much traffic allowed on the public highways nowadays, far too much. People ought to walk if they cannot keep carriages."
She broke off abruptly and looked